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Seaton residents return to fire-ravaged town

TONY EASTLEY: Residents of a small town in central Gippsland have returned home to see for themselves the damage done by a bushfire which ripped through the area at a speed that even surprised seasoned fire-fighters.

The fire has so far killed one person and destroyed 21 homes, and is still raging out of control with hot and windy conditions forecast later in the week.

Ian Coffin's neighbour was killed when the fire tore through Seaton on Friday morning.

Ian Coffin is speaking here with reporter Jenni Henderson.

IAN COFFIN: The main reason we left was because of the fact it was growing too quickly, too large, too soon. I don't think anyone expected it to get across there that big, that quick. We had everything packed and we left about 3am and we didn't know at the time but there was already spot fires further over even at that time.

JENNI HENDERSON: And that's on Friday…

IAN COFFIN: That's Friday morning, yeah.

I actually spoke to one of the guys who stayed and defended. I rang him when it was probably about, just as it was hitting and yeah, he was scared and he survived, his house survived so it was good, but there's a lot who didn't.

I think luck comes into it. Looking around, how selective, like you see something burnt everywhere and then there's just some little bits and pieces that are just totally unscathed.

JENNI HENDERSON: Your house is standing here. Did you think it might be when you were coming back?

IAN COFFIN: No. Actually we did know in the end because the couple of guys who stayed, they came up through the day and had a look and they rang me and said 'Look it's still standing at the minute'.

JENNI HENDERSON: You've been through this situation one time before. What was that like?

IAN COFFIN: Horrible. Yeah we stayed and defended about six years ago. It's frightening, it was overwhelming.

When it happens, you don't feel fear because the adrenalin kicks in and you're so worked up you just can't even think about being frightened. But afterwards when you sit down and you think about it all, you think how lucky you are.

And it stays with you forever. The emotion is always there, as much as you try and prepare for it, you take some of your prized possessions but there's so many other things that you can't take with you and you can't replace them.

So I'd say that they're going for a pretty hard time at the minute.

JENNI HENDERSON: Also, this particular community affected by the death of someone as well.

IAN COFFIN: Oh definitely. That hits home to everyone because being a small community, even though I didn't know him personally, it just hits home that a poor fella's died and he was only 200 metres from my place and it's sort of... it just shows how dangerous a fire is.

Whether he just left it too late, we just don't know. Everyone will be thinking of him, thinking 'Yeah, could have been any one of us'. And a few people who got out only just got out by the skin of their teeth.

We still need to be vigilant because the fire is still very active and later in the week there still could be embers blowing around and they could still land on the house, still get under the house, get into your eaves.

We're still going to have to be, you know, very careful. It's far from over, that's for sure.

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